Off to England

We've taken several big trips recently, but coincidences forced us to take another. Melissa's friend Megan and her husband Josh are living in England, and offered to have us visit. Melissa's friend Melissa T and her husband John were traveling through Europe, so we could hang out with them. And if that wasn't enough motivation, British Airways was offering an amazing deal with extremely low fares plus two free nights in a hotel in London. So off to England we went.

We stayed at Melissa's parent's in Chicago before flying out of O'Hare Monday afternoon. We flew "overnight" to London. I slept about an hour, so was tired upon landing. But despite the jet-lag we only had 2 days to see London, so we immediately started touring the city. We stayed at the Royal National Hotel on the north west side of the city. It was really, really big and raucous, but it was a free bed in the world's most expensive city so who's complaining? We decided to get around by foot just to take in all the sights and sounds between the sights. We walked through Trafalgar Square,
down to the parliament building and "Big Ben" which we heard give the 11am chime.
We went to Westminster Abbey, which was beautiful on the outside, but not worth going in. Admission was 10lb ($20) each, and the building was just a dusty, store-chamber for hundreds of old tombs from the 1500s. But we saw where royalty get married, and sat in on noon prayer.

Next we walked down to Buckingham Palace.
We saw the ending of the changing of the guard ceremony. A band marched behind a group of "soldiers" on the way to the barracks down the street. Then they did an elaborate bit of bayonet waving, foot stomping, and shouting into each other's faces.

We found a little pizza place for lunch, then walked north to the National Gallery. This is where the jet-lag hit us, and at 3pm we both found ourselves almost falling asleep in the middle of the museum. So we nixed our plan to see the British Museum, walked back to the hotel, and immediately fell asleep.

The following morning we saw St. Paul's Cathedral. This was a beautiful building, the highlight of London. We were able to take the stares up the dome and get a 360 degree panorama of the city.

We went back and forth over the River Thames to cross Tower Bridge (not to be mistaken with London Bridge).
We toured Tower of London, and listened to the history from one of the Yeoman.
This is where the crown jewels are kept, but the guards did not allow photos.
And we did not want to flirt with the consequences.
Then we stopped at a local joint for fish 'n chips.

We took the subway to the British Museum,
but were disappointed to find that we only had 45 minutes before they closed. We quickly made our way to the Rosetta Stone, and some of the mummies, but the rest we had to rush through. Then it was back to the hotel to end the day early.